Science and Horse Experts: the Lisbon Sociedade Hípica (1910–1974)

This article examines the role of the Sociedade Hípica Portuguesa (SHP) and associated networks in shaping horse breeding practices in Portugal between 1910 and 1974. It argues that horse arenas functioned as hybrid institutions, combining leisure, economic activity, and scientific inquiry, and therefore constituted significant sites of knowledge production beyond formal laboratories. Methodologically, the study draws on a combination of archival sources, including studbooks, correspondence, parliamentary debates, and the sporting press, in order to reconstruct the practices and epistemic cultures of breeders, veterinarians, and agronomists. By analysing the circulation of horses and expertise between Portugal and Spain, the article shows how animals operated as “commodities in motion,” enabling the transfer and transformation of breeding knowledge across borders. At the same time, it demonstrates that, unlike other domains of agriculture, Portuguese horse breeding only partially incorporated Mendelian genetics, revealing the limits of scientific diffusion in elite-controlled environments. The article contributes to the historiography of the “animal turn,” the history of breeding and heredity, and the study of hybrid scientific institutions, by highlighting the Iberian context as a key but overlooked space of transnational exchange. It shows that elite equestrian institutions were not peripheral but central to the production, circulation, and negotiation of biological knowledge in the twentieth century.